Challenge Day 10 (of 30): Unforced Error, Enforced Rest

Apparently it was Sir Francis Bacon who coined the phrase “if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.” The funny thing is, I’ve always thought the proverb ran the other way around; perhaps in my head it got mixed up with the Christian wisdom about faith being enough to move mountains. But I take the meaning to be roughly the same: if one thing won’t budge, something else will have to give.

The gastro I have is as bad as any I can remember; the fewer details the better, and it’s kept me in bed and mostly half-asleep with a temperature all day. (A friend made a joke about Jackson Pollock paintings and, well, yes.) But the gastro is clearly made worse by burnout; I have been going too hard and if I keep missing out on sleep to get stuff done I will get sick. Physics! It is what it is.

So this is as short as these emails get; I’m now going to turn in and try to coax some rest out of the resurgent nausea, and come the morning I will start prioritising bedtimes. It will be tricky to get all the Business Stuff done while also getting enough sleep, but burnout would be trickier still.

Thanks as always for reading.